04/09/2018 – Sister Schroeder's Mission Blog

This week was a good week. Lots of stuff happened and KEELY GOT BAPTIZED!!!!

I don’t know why, but I was so stressed out and nervous at the baptism. I woke up feeling a little nervous, because we wanted everything to go well and we had to put together the whole program ourselves, so that was a little nerve-wracking. And then one of the elders started stressing me out while we were setting up for the baptism because he kept saying that there was a meeting at 4, and so we had to go fast so we would be done by then (the baptism started at 2:30). And then our ward mission leader was nervous about conducting (which is understandable) so we had to run through everything with him while trying to keep Keely from freaking out. And then after the baptism, we realized the person who was supposed to give the talk on the Holy Ghost went to the wrong building and wouldn’t be at the baptism in time to speak. So Sis Williams, being the amazing person she is, gave an awesome short talk on the Holy Ghost with only 5 minutes to prepare. I had a very proud “that’s my companion!” moment.

Even though things were a little crazy, everything ran smoothly and Keely was able to get baptized and confirmed. I’m so proud of her and I know Heavenly Father is so proud of her for taking this step. She had the biggest smile on her face after she came up out of the water and in the changing room she was laughing so hard she was falling over. She kept saying “I just did that! I just got baptized!” And then after she got the gift of the Holy Ghost, she told us she felt weird in a really good way and kept asking if she did anything wrong. She is so adorable and I love her so much!

Keely’s baptism was definitely the highlight of my week, but the morning of the baptism was a close second because I accidentally locked us out of our apartment. Yay! I wasn’t feeling well that morning, and Sis Williams asked if I wanted to still do our morning walk, and I thought fresh air would help so out we went. Since we only go out for a few minutes to walk, we don’t lock the apartment so we can leave the keys inside. However, every other time we leave the apartment we turn the lock before going out. As we’ve already established, I wasn’t feeling well, which means I wasn’t thinking straight, so I locked the door behind us. I realized it as soon as the door closed. It’s been our fear every morning that we would lock ourselves out, and now our fear had become a reality.

We decided to walk around a little bit since there was nothing we could do, and then after about 20 minutes we knocked on the other sisters’ door to see if they had any suggestions about what we should do. They didn’t, but they made us waffles and eggs while we called the security people and the offsite number for the office. No one answered, so we called the elders to see if they wanted to come and break us in through the balcony. They said yes (cause they’re elders) and they arrived 15 minutes later. Elder De Buck climbed up to our balcony (which is on the second floor) and tried to open the sliding door but… it was locked. So they tried to card our door. That didn’t work. And our window was locked, so they couldn’t get in through there, and none of the random keys that the sisters had in a box fit, either. So the elders took waffles, said good luck, and went home to their nice unlocked apartment. Then the sisters said they were going to get ready for the day, so we went to the office to chill until the office opened… at 9. We left our apartment at 6:30. Since I wasn’t feeling well it was hard for me to sit, so I was walking around in circles for an hour and a half. Good thing I looked like a crazy person though, because a lady came to ask what we were doing and we told her we got locked out, so she went and found Jeff and got keys from him to let us in. It was quite stressful, but we didn’t let that ruin our day. Not today, Satan!

So Saturday was the most exciting day of the week, as you’ve heard, and we just did good ol’ missionary work for the rest of the week. We did more walking than usual and both of our feet were in pain by the end of each day. In YSA you don’t walk and knock doors like other missionaries, because you can only teach people age 18-30, but President Layton wants everyone to cut down on miles so we’ve been trying it out.

I’m pretty sure I’ve been scarred for life though, because yesterday while walking we got to experience the ugly side of the circle of life. There was a bunny colony right next to where we were walking (so many bunnies!) and most of them looked like teenagers so Sis Williams and I were talking about how cute they are, but we agreed that the really little baby bunnies are cuter. We kept walking for a minute, and we started to hear what sounded like an alarm going off. It was a really high pitched squealy sound that reminded me of a fire alarm. We looked around and it turned out not to be a fire alarm from the school, but a really little cute baby bunny that was in the beak of a crow. We watched the crow take off with the bunny, fly a few feet away, and then begin to eat it. Sis Williams and I had both unconsciously stopped to see this horrible murder, but started walking away quickly to avoid seeing the actual kill. Gotta love the circle of life.

We also got to go to the dentist this week and Sis Williams needs 2 root canals so this week should be exciting!

Well, that’s all folks. I hope you all have an amazing week!

Ciao,
Sister Schroeder

When they forgot to give Sis Williams BBQ sauce for her chicken nuggets: